“Creature Comfort”

Like the perpetual theater kids they are, Arcade Fire have always fancied themselves a beacon for the misfits. It was there when they urged us to wake up from this bullshit world, when they spoke to the desire to flee the suburbs, when they asked, “Is anything as strange as a normal person?” They add another such anthem to their repertoire with “Creature Comfort,” an anti-suicide PSA that sounds a little like Suicide.

As Arcade Fire’s aspirations to become the biggest band in the world have grown more overt, so too has their tribe-building, like the Lady Gaga of indie rock. The increased profile has also coincided with an embrace of electronic sounds, but the song incorporates enough of their signatures to still resemble Arcade Fire, glockenspiel glitter flecking off coldwave synths in a striking way. “Creature Comfort” sounded better to me when they premiered it at Primavera Sound, though—gloriously raw and loud, thus harder to make out the words.

The lyrical arena is where Arcade Fire have out-Arcade-Fired themselves, with the song humble-bragging at one point about Funeral preventing a fan’s suicide. There are specific moments of empathy here that ring true to how music can be the salve, like the line, “Some girls hate their bodies, stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback.” And their overflowing hearts are in the right places, amplifying the unspoken struggle over whether to go through with it in the chorus before Win Butler reasons, “Well if you’re not sure, better safe than sorry.” Inevitably, this song will stop someone from doing something rash. The problem is that Arcade Fire are pompous about knowing that, throwing their arms wide around the problem and presenting their own music as the solution. Bono on line one for you, Win.